Administrative timeline

Before applications open

Update this page to reflect any changes in procedure you wish to implement for this round of the scholarship.

Update the Scholarship terms to reflect any changes in procedure you wish to implement, along with relevant dates (in particular, the open/close dates for application submissions). In case of any substantive changes, be sure to run them by Red Hat legal.

Update the Scholarship page to reflect the dates for the new cycle along with any procedural changes that affect the content on that page.

Publicize via Fedora channels to encourage people to apply. See #Marketing for ideas.

When applications open

Edit the Scholarship page to reflect that the application period is open.

Publicize via Fedora channels to encourage people to apply. See #Marketing for ideas.

Nominate people for the selection committee and ask if they would be willing to serve.

Once applications close

Edit the Scholarship wiki page to reflect that the application period for this cycle is over.

Select the final selection committee from among the eligible nominees (selection committee nominees serving as references for an application cycle are not eligible to serve on the committee for that cycle).

Select the final applicants (screen applications for quality and pass them on to the selection committee).

Email the references of the final applicants asking them to send their thoughts to the selection committee.

Guide the selection committee through the process of selecting a winner.

Once a winner is selected

Take care of the financial logistics behind transferring scholarship funds to the school the winner will be attending.

Convene a follow-up meeting with the selection committee and any other interested attendees from the Fedora community in order to think about ways to improve the scholarship program for the next cycle.

Edit this page to reset the instructions for the administrator of the next cycle. If you will not be administering the next cycle, find your successor and hold a handoff meeting.

Marketing

The marketing of the Fedora Scholarship has taken several forms in the past, including:

Announcement press release

The Fedora Project, a Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT) sponsored and community-supported open source collaboration, announces the INSERT YEAR HERE opening of the Fedora Scholarship program recognizing college and university-bound students across the globe for their contributions to free software and the Fedora Project.

The Fedora Scholarship program furthers Red Hat and the Fedora Project's commitment to helping develop and foster up and coming talent in the open source software field. Applicants will be evaluated on criteria including the quality of contributions made to Fedora and other free software projects, references provided by Fedora community members, the amount of time the applicant has been contributing to Fedora and the overall quality of the application. Recipients will receive a scholarship to be applied toward tuition for the student's college or university education. In addition, the recipient will receive funding for travel and lodging at the Fedora User and Developer Conference (FUDCon) nearest to their location for each year of the scholarship.

"Free and open source software is a major disruptive technology, and provides boundless possibilities for developing technology skills. The Fedora community recognizes the importance of exposing technology enthusiasts at an early age to the possibilities of free and open source software, and working in an innovative community effort like Fedora is the best way to develop and hone these skills," said Paul Frields, Fedora Project leader at Red Hat. "We hope the Fedora Scholarship serves as a catalyst for younger generations to become involved in open source projects, and continue the positive momentum behind not only Fedora, but all free and open source software."

For more news about Red Hat, visit www.redhat.com. For more news, more often, visit www.press.redhat.com.

About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat, the world's leading open source solutions provider, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with over 50 satellite offices spanning the globe. CIOs have ranked Red Hat first for value in Enterprise Software for four consecutive years in the CIO Insight Magazine Vendor Value study. Red Hat provides high-quality, affordable technology with its operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, together with applications, management and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions, including the JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com.
Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including: risks related to the integration of acquisitions; the ability of the Company to effectively compete; the inability to adequately protect Company intellectual property and the potential for infringement or breach of license claims of or relating to third party intellectual property; risks related to data and information security vulnerabilities; ineffective management of, and control over, the Company's growth and international operations; adverse results in litigation; and changes in and a dependence on key personnel, as well as other factors contained in our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q (copies of which may be accessed through the Securities and Exchange Commission's Web site at http://www.sec.gov), including those found therein under the captions "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations". In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release.

LINUX is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. RED HAT® and JBOSS® are registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. and its subsidiaries in the US and other countries.

Award press release

The Fedora Project, a Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT) sponsored and community-supported open source collaboration, today announced that WINNER is the recipient of the YEAR Fedora Scholarship, a program now in its NUMBERth year. The Fedora Scholarship program recognizes college and university-bound students across the globe for their contributions to free software and the Fedora Project. WINNER was selected from an impressive applicant pool and plans to attend COLLEGE this fall and major in MAJOR.

Fedora and Red Hat are committed to helping future talent in the technology and computer science field gain hands-on experience with open source software. The Fedora Scholarship serves as a way to enable up-and-coming contributors to work within free and open source software communities throughout their college years and beyond. As a Fedora contributor, 1-2 sentences about the contributions of the scholarship winner to Fedora.

"We are very pleased to be awarding the Fedora Scholarship once again this year," said Paul Frields, Fedora Project Leader at Red Hat. "With this scholarship, Fedora and Red Hat hope to continue to foster strong interest in free and open source software across the the next generation of engineers. We thank WINNER for his/her numerous contributions to the Fedora Project and look forward to his/her work with the Fedora community in the future."

Fedora Scholarship applicants are evaluated on criteria including the quality of contributions made to Fedora and other free software projects, references provided by Fedora community members, the amount of time the applicant has been contributing to Fedora and the overall quality of the application. Recipients are awarded a scholarship to be applied toward tuition for the student's college or university education. Fedora Scholarship winners also receive funding for travel and lodging at the Fedora User and Developer Conference (FUDCon) nearest to their location for each year of the scholarship.

For more information about the Fedora Project, visit www.fedoraproject.org. For more news about Red Hat, visit www.redhat.com. For more news, more often, visit www.press.redhat.com.
About Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat, the world's leading open source solutions provider, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with over 65 offices spanning the globe. CIOs ranked Red Hat as one of the top vendors delivering value in Enterprise Software for five consecutive years in the CIO Insight Magazine Vendor Value survey. Red Hat provides high-quality, affordable technology with its operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, together with applications, management and Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) solutions, including JBoss Enterprise Middleware. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com.
Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including: risks related to delays or reductions in information technology spending, the integration of acquisitions and the ability to market successfully acquired technologies and products; the ability of the Company to effectively compete; the inability to adequately protect Company intellectual property and the potential for infringement or breach of license claims of or relating to third party intellectual property; the ability to deliver and stimulate demand for new products and technological innovations on a timely basis; risks related to data and information security vulnerabilities; ineffective management of, and control over, the Company's growth and international operations; fluctuations in exchange rates; adverse results in litigation; and changes in and a dependence on key personnel, as well as other factors contained in our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q (copies of which may be accessed through the Securities and Exchange Commission's website at http://www.sec.gov), including those found therein under the captions "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations". In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic conditions, and governmental and public policy changes. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release.

Application receipt confirmation

Thanks for your application to the Fedora Scholarship - your application has been received and is complete. See https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Scholarship#Timeline for the remainder of the dates in this Scholarship cycle (the next date is April 5, the date by which the scholarship recipient will be privately notified).

Best of luck with the remainder of your studies this year, and we'll see you in Fedora-land!

Those of you who've participated in the scholarship committee process in the past will notice a difference between this year and last year - we're designating a committee candidate *pool* instead of a committee before the application deadline, and once the application deadline has passed the final committee will be chosen from the members of that pool who are not serving as references to the applicants under consideration. Basically, what this means is that for any given year, you can be a selection committee member, or you can be an applicant's reference, but you can't be both.

Giving applications to the selection committee

Greetings,

You are receiving this email because you've offered to be on the selection committee for this year's Fedora Scholarship, and you were not chosen as a reference by any of the applicants. That means you have the responsibility of picking this year's scholarship winner. Congratulations!

The application window for this year closed on DATE. The applications and references for each candidate are attached. As you read these applications, please keep the selection criteria in mind. I've also asked each of the references listed by the applicants to send their brief thoughts on the candidates to you by the start of next week, so those should be coming in shortly.

Asking references for comments

If you could take a few minutes between now and DATE and reply to this email with a paragraph or two (or longer, if you'd like) on your impressions of the candidate and the contributions they've made to the Fedora Project and free software/content in general, this would aid the selection committee (copied) in their decision.

Thank you,

For the selection committee

This section is under construction.

Selection committee timeline

February 19, 2010 -- final committee membership is determined.

by March 12, 2010 -- Each member of the selection committee reviews the applications, weighs the merits of each along with the criteria, and writes a few paragraphs to the rest of the committee indicating their thinking.

by March 19, 2010 -- discussion continues, and if we have not reached a consensus by email, a conference call will be set up in order to make a final decision.

April 5, 2010 -- according to the Terms and Conditions, the recipient will be notified by the Scholarship administrator by this date (no action needed by committee members).

May 5, 2010 -- by this date, a postmortem will be conducted with ideas on improvements to this program for the next year, including marketing, selection criteria, the selection process itself, etc.

Selection committee membership

Selected by the Scholarship administrator.

Entirely composed of Fedora community members.

In the past, each committee has had at least one community member with ties to academia (professor, etc).

All previous recipients of the Fedora Scholarship have the option to serve on the selection committee.

May not be serving as a reference for any of the scholarship candidates the same year they are members of the selection committee.

Selection committee candidate pool

If you have been invited to be in the selection committee candidate pool and wish to accept, place your name in the list below.

Ideas for next round

If you have an idea, please add it here.

One thing I'm thinking about is starting a mailing list for discussion/questions on the scholarship, because there's no place for people to talk about it right now (well... the talk page, but we don't really use that in Fedoraland). Mel Chua 10:30, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Another thing I'm thinking about - not for this round, though - is having contributors submit their applications via git checkin, which I think is a perfectly reasonable barrier to entry if we want Fedora contributors anyway (if you're an active participant in Fedora, you should at least know what git is and be able to find someone to walk you through how to use it, regardless of what type of contributor you are). Mel Chua 10:30, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this is possible in a way that keeps applications private, but even if it were, I can't help but feel that this would be an artificial barrier to application that has less to do our precise selection criteria. If this is more of a response to a spam or signal-to-noise issue, I'm sure we can think of other solutions though. Ricky Zhou 19:15, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

We should continue to offer the scholarship in its current amount, with the current selection process, for the foreseeable future - it's a good way to say thank you. Mel Chua 13:58, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

We should downscale publicity of this scholarship specifically to existing Fedora communication channels. (No "apply for this scholarship" press release, no listing on scholarships.com.) Those who should apply already, by definition, watch those channels.Mel Chua 13:58, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

We should also consider a separate, non-Fedora "scholarships in open source" publicity initiative - not offer additional scholarships ourselves, but encourage, highlight, and create a space for others to aggregate college scholarships geared towards or appropriate for open source contributors, and resources to help make one's application for those scholarships (ideally offered by a wide range of organizations, some with recognizable names). Things like "make a press release on the Fedora Scholarship winner" fall into this category - but generally speaking, the atmosphere to create is "open source == educational opportunity" in a way people like my parents would understand. Mel Chua 13:58, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Things to fix for this round

We may not be able to do everything on this list, but we'll try.

Students from conscription countries not eligible

The way the Terms and Conditions are worded at the moment disqualifies most contributors from countries that have conscription. Usually these mandatory services (army, community service) take place between high school and university so there currently is no way for contributors that are affected to fulfill 2 (i) and 2 (iii) of the Scholarship terms at the same time. Also see the Map of countries that are affected (all the red ones). --Heffer 10:54, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Fixed; the Terms and Conditions now allow students "enrolled as a high school or secondary school student (or home-schooled student) during the Program Application Term, or [who] have graduated with a high school or secondary school diploma within two (2) years of the start of the Program Application Term." Thanks for calling out this bug! Mel Chua 05:55, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Further explanation: The new T&C allows students from transcription countries to apply during their year of service. You still apply the year immediately before you go to university, but you don't have to be enrolled in secondary school when you apply so long as you've graduated from it within the last 2 years. Mel Chua 05:58, 17 December 2009 (UTC)